Since years ago, an increasing number of Chinese photographers have been choosing to travel in India as their first foreign destination. At the 2018 PIP Festival this year in September, the "Photographs of India" exhibition of recent black & white photographs by the Chinese photographer Cai Huansong and the New Zealander Julian Ward, provided an opportunity to compare and contrast their approaches to the India they discovered for themselves as independent photographers of note from very different backgrounds.

Project Title: Photographs of India

Curator: John B Turner

Artists: Cai Huansong, Julian Wards

Curator’s Introduction:

John B Turner, was born in New Zealand in 1943 and now lives in Beijing. He curated his first exhibition in 1968 and went on to produce a national survey of Nineteenth Century NZ photographs in 1970. He was a lecturer in photography at the University of Auckland for 40 years and in 1973 was the founding editor and now co-editor of PhotoForummagazine. Co-author with William Main of New Zealand Photography from the 1840s to the Present (1993). Edited Ink & Silver (1995) and Eric Lee Johnson:Artist with a Camera (1999). Curated 'To Save a Forest…'. Photographs by leading New Zealand conservationists: Martin Hill, Ian Macdonald and Craig Potton for the PIP Pingyao 2014. Book of his own work, Te Atatu Me: photographs of an urban New Zealand village, published 2015. Curated 'Tom Hutchins. Seen in China, 1956' for PIP Pingyao in 2016. Co-curator with Dr Phoebe H Li of the exhibition and book 'Recollections of a distant shore: a photographic introduction to the Chinese in New Zealand' for the Overseas Chinese History Museum, Beijing, 2016.

Project's Introduction:

INDIA has long been held as a desirable destination for photographers for its unique and fascinating history and culture: it's difference from the West and much of Asia. Numerous famous foreign photographers, including Margaret Bourke-White, Brian Brake (a New Zealander), Henri Cartier-Bresson, Steve McCurry and Marc Riboud early became known for their work which introduced India to a world-wide audience in the mid-20th Century.

Photographer Julian Ward’s Statement:

Most of these photographs are from Rajasthan (central, West India), north of Delhi in a Tibetan Colony area (Majna-Ka-Tilla), the west coast and backwaters of Kerala and beaches at Goa. We, (my wife and I) also spent time in the massive city of Mumbai. We were in India in 2010, 2012, 2017 and 2018 for approximately two months on each visit. We tried to avoid tourist areas and travelled mainly by local transport. We were always free to stop and nest when we found interesting places.

I am a photographer who generally responds to what's in front of me, rather than being a documentarian or following themes. So, wherever I go, pictures appear like magic.

Some of exhibition photos by Julian Ward and Cai Huansong as following ↓: